Ten Things You NEED To Know About Australia

After that depressing emo blog post about my reflections on Australia Day, I thought it might be again time to balance out my blog and add some happiness into it! (I like happy). So I thought I'd put together a list of things anyone and everyone needs to know about The Land Down Under. There are seriously a lot of misunderstandings about Australian history, geography etc. So I thought, in the spirit of Australia Day, things should be cleared out by a certified Australian! So, here goes!

1. Sydney is NOT the capital of Australia. Just a brief lesson on Australian history, when they were trying to find a capital of Australia, both Sydney and Melbourne wanted to be the capital but in the end, they decided to make a place called Canberra, located in between Sydney and Melbourne. Sydney is just the biggest city in Australia, that’s all.
2. The majority of the Australian population don’t live in the desert. Yeah, it’s true that most of our land is desert, but a lot of people do live on the coastline. We have cities, suburbs, houses, shopping malls, McDonalds and airconditioning. But we don't have Taco Bell, though! And no, not all Australians go to the beach everyday, tan and surf. Many Australians don't even live near enough to the beach. Most Australians, I would say, live very regular everyday-people lives.
3. We don’t, and probably can’t, ride on kangaroos. People are probably just joking around with Australians riding kangaroos, but no one ever actually does that! They stand on two hind legs, so yeah! And no, we don't keep the as pets.
4. Australia has states. My friend who is an exchange student met an American guy who argued with her that there are no states in Australia and that Sydney is the capital of Australia. Of course, both are wrong, wrong and wrong! Australia has 6 states and 3 territories. Google it :)
5. It doesn’t snow in Australia. Ever. Although there are a couple of places where it snows a little bit. And when the temperature is low enough (it rarely ever is, though), it will snow but only a little bit. But we don’t experience snow D:
6. Australia isn’t monocultural. We are, in fact, quite multicultural. Though I know there are certain areas in the country where it’s more white-dominated than others.
7. Following from Fact #6, Australia’s descendants are not Caucasian. The original people in Australia are the indigenous people called the Aboriginals. Australia got colonised by Europe in the late 1700's.
8. The British didn’t discover Australia. The Dutch did! Captain James Cook is often mistaken for discovering Australia, but a few people actually beat him to that!
9. We don’t have a President, like how America has Barack Obama etc. Like Britain, we have a Prime Minister as we're still under the Commonwealth (read: Australia is not a republic). Her name is Julia Gillard, she's a ranga and has a bogan accent. Oh, and she's actually Welsh in terms of cultural heritage too.
10. Koalas aren’t bears. I thought they were when I was younger, but now I know, I don’t exactly know why they called koalas “koala bear”. Maybe because they just look like bears? 
11. Extra Fact: Australians just speak English. No other language. And we don't have an English accent either. On Twitter, I saw someone today ask what languages we spoke. To clear things out, Australians just speak English. Except with an accent, just like how American and British people all speak English but have different accents. If you have no idea what a typical Australian accent sounds like, click here for the lols. If you hate stereotypes, click here for what a real Australian accent really sound like.